No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
Ranking in Data Center Networking
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (12th)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Data Center Networking
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Blade Servers (2nd), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Data Center Networking category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is 4.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 4.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Center Networking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series4.5%
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series4.1%
Other91.4%
Data Center Networking
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Technical Marketing Engineer Hybrid Cloud Infrastructures at NetApp
Policy-driven data centers have delivered low-latency connectivity for critical applications
The most critical and important feature in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is VPC. Apart from VPC, there are many other features in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series that stand out as advantages. You can apply access control lists on that. You can do Layer 3 capabilities. You can configure HSRP. You can implement VRFs. You can isolate the L3 network within your data center. It has a lot of features including network segmentation capabilities. You can apply a lot of security hardening and manage the access on the switches through auditing to see who is doing what and restrict access based on the network admin role. These are great features. The overlay technology support in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is good for large-scale deployment where you are going to build something like a hyperscaler. You need more network segments, and with VXLAN, you can definitely build a large fabric with those Nexus switches.
Tom van Mil - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Lico Innovations B.v.
Supports flexible hosting needs through seamless upgradability and strong monitoring capabilities
The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for me are the feature richness and the upgradability. I really love the way that it is so dynamically applicable for every situation, and they manage to have an all-in-one solution for every single situation. Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio. Every time Dell is at the top of its game for us, and there is just no other brand for us that is able to reach that kind of price-to-performance ratio. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of my small company, such as iDRAC. The iDRAC system is a complete feature set for managing servers and hardware technically and monitoring-wise. It really fits in our system and our ecosystem, and monitoring-wise, it is excellent. They have all these sensors available via different protocols and end points, which I love, and the ability to manage and control everything via the iDRAC interface is just a welcome bonus. In our use case, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very flexible. It is another computer which helps a lot because of the durability over time. They keep running, making scalability for getting more of those resources in our environment so easy.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We are using the core capabilities of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Ethernet switches, and it is performing well."
"The stability and reliability of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series are robust, and once you put it on, it does not just fail; that takes a long time, maybe even years."
"According to the customers, they are not utilizing even 40% of the switches because the capacity is very large."
"The features for manageability and visibility are impressive."
"RealPresence works effectively."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very durable and very reliable, and there has never been any issue with it."
"For one of the biggest European customers, they deployed Cisco Nexus for their core networking and it has been running for a few years without having a single downtime."
"Performance has been great with no abnormal behaviors detected, and the network remains stable even in failover scenarios, supporting vast environments with high availability."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers helped reduce unplanned production downtime significantly."
"The solutions accelerated GPUs have helped to support demanding workloads and to reduce data processing time in our organization."
"The biggest benefit I see from using Dell PowerEdge is the ease of use."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are user-friendly."
"Since using the VxRail, I would say Dell VxRail P670N environment definitely makes our work easier, whether that is directly due to the VxRail or not."
"This means that if you would scale up linearly, one person could take care of 3000 Servers. That's quite impactful. Google published three people for 1000. We are doing one person for 3000. That allows us to free human resources for other tasks."
"It works perfectly, especially in terms of availability and reliability, without any type of issue, which is why we are very happy with it."
"The feature I like the most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is the graphical interface of iDRAC, which helps to speed up the process because the servers are very reliable and have significantly reduced unplanned production downtime."
 

Cons

"Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive."
"We find that Cisco has been left behind by the other vendors. The other vendors have adopted new technology, and we find Cisco lagging behind."
"In terms of automation with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series, it could be better."
"Even though it is expensive, I am not sure about the return on investment. It is expensive, and you will need to pay for subscription fees that also are not cheap."
"For Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches, I think we need to work on the HSRP. Whenever it flaps or something happens, it creates an issue."
"The SFP modules we are using have had issues. We have Cisco modules, but they frequently heat up or there are packet error issues."
"I would rate the technical support for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series an eight out of ten. This rating is not because of their lack of expertise, but just the assignment period."
"If I have a Juniper and want to uplink with Cisco, there could be some configuration challenges."
"One issue is the limited CPU options on the servers compared to the vendor, Intel."
"The way Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved includes addressing the current issues I am experiencing with ordering hardware, particularly with lead time and price."
"In terms of the iDRAC software, when selecting systems, especially multiple systems to upgrade, there's really no way to confirm that specific systems are selected."
"The pricing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been a little problematic. It was sticker shock with our most recent purchase compared to the previous one, and there's a gap in pricing at our current level because what we do isn't very compute-intensive, resulting in a mismatch where we fit into an in-between category without an exact solution available."
"Dell needs to focus more on SMBs, helping us get the most out of our products."
"Even though there is some downtime, they are durable."
"The limited connectivity of the Rack Servers, due to having only three USB ports, is an area of improvement for Dell."
"Dell PowerEdge R-Series could be improved in the area of the connection with the OpenManage Mobile App, as it hangs a bit sometimes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for PowerEdge servers is reasonable."
"Dell's solution was cheaper than HP's solution."
"The high cost of Dell PowerEdge Rack Server licenses is attributed to the pre-installed Windows Server operating system from Microsoft."
"Regarding the pricing, it seems fair."
"We have not compared them with others. The price is okay, but they can always be a little bit cheaper."
"The cost structure associated with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers presents itself as a potential point of contention for budget-conscious consumers, as it could be more strategically positioned to compete within the broader marketplace."
"The product's pricing is not good."
"It's abundantly clear that the specific licensing requirements will be dictated by the intricacies of the machinery we deploy."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Center Networking solutions are best for your needs.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
23%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business112
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise138
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
If we speak about the negative side, the prices are something that could be improved. It is expensive compared with other competitors, about 40% higher than any other vendor. This is the main point...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series focuses on serving the data center primarily, not the endpoints. The focus is on how to serve your data center, perform the segmentation that you need inside your data cente...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
The policy-driven approach in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series can be understood through the integration with Cisco DNA. One of the main features or strength points that Cisco Nexus 9000 Series has is the f...
When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Unplanned production downtime is a concern. According to our experience, when we run a high workload to a certain level, for example, more than 80% or up to 90%, the system does not perform well. T...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
We run multiple workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, including database and virtual machine workloads. Some of our multi-purpose VM workloads are running databases such as Mongo or Oracle. We serv...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus 9000 Series vs. Dell PowerEdge R-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.